


In Sickness and In Health

by theredheadinadress



Series: The Life and Times of Nero Adler Holmes [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1333720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredheadinadress/pseuds/theredheadinadress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nero goes missing and both Irene and Sherlock realise how much they are willing to sacrifice to bring their boy home. They had never been conventional parents and it takes until their boy is taken to realise how much they really care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness and In Health

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I had this sudden inspiration to write something based on a picture I edited two days ago. I created a picture-style story and then wrote the content around the pictures but the main plot is that Nero is kidnapped. However, the main focus is on how Irene and Sherlock react to their son's kidnapping, rather than them trying to rescue him. The title 'In Sickness and in Health' is more of a working title and if any of you guys come up with a better title it will be welcomed!!

Nero Adler Holmes, technically born Nero Wolfe, was so engrossed in picking out the right book on electronic circuits that he wasn’t aware of the door to his workroom opening. In fact, the eight year old opened the book and walked back to the work bench, oblivious to the light streaming into the poorly lit room. He frowned slightly at the open page, before picking up some tools from the bench in front of him. Mrs Hudson, who had been the one to open the door, smiled at the boy, so engrossed in his work, so much like his father was upstairs.

After a moment longer of studying the boy from the door of 221C, Mrs Hudson finally spoke in order to notify the boy of her presence. “Nero, you’re been in here all day, don’t you think its time to do something else dear?”

Nero didn’t even look up from what he was doing and continued to tend to the pieces of conjoined metal in front of him. Sherlock had rented 221C out as a playroom for Nero, but at 8 years of age there were no conventional toys like lego and action figures, in sight. Instead, the room was full of pieces of metal, tools, scientific equipment and half finished experiments with bubbling mixtures in them. Part of the reason Sherlock was paying the rent for this space, was due to one particular experiment of Nero’s when he had been only four. He’d somehow gotten ahold of a bottle of corrosive acid from Sherlock and had spilt it all over one of the cream sofas in Irene’s drawing room in Belgravia. Ever since, Irene had firmly put a ‘no experiments ban’ on her home, meaning that the only place Nero could do them was at Baker Street and the kitchen table wasn’t big enough for Nero and Sherlock’s separate experiments. As such, Sherlock had agreed to rent the empty apartment from Mrs Hudson, as a space for Nero to do his own experiments. Although Irene had requested supervision for more dangerous ones, Sherlock’s erratic case work mostly meant Nero was free to do whatever he wished in the basement of Baker Street. It hadn’t always been like that, there had been a long period when Nero had been small, when Sherlock would come down to 221C almost daily to help his son, but such days were few and far between now. Instead, Nero had begun his own project, bigger than any of his scientific experiments he’d done before, to create a real life robot. He’d built miniature ones before of course, but this was going to be life sized, or at least doll sized, he’d had to scale down his ambitions slightly. His father would be so impressed with him that he’d created something so incredibly complex that he’d be bound to spend more time with him. Nero thought that his father would be far more willing to work with his son, if he proved himself as appropriately intelligent.

In his desperation to finish it, Nero zoned out of the world, much in the same way his father escaped to his mind palace, and as such, he was unaware that Mrs Hudson was talking to him or that she was even in the same room as him, until she’d carefully wandered halfway into the room and repeated her statement five times.

“Nero dear, isn’t it time to do something else?”

Nero looked up, shocked that somebody was speaking to him and shook his head and said rather rudely “No.”

“Enough of that attitude impolite attitude young man.” Mrs Hudson scolded.

Usually the boy was polite, having luckily taken after his mother in mannerisms, but occasionally as his father did, he became so stubbornly engrossed in what he was doing that they slipped.

"Sorry Mrs Hudson. I didn’t mean to be rude.” Nero replied, realising his mistake.

He said it with an angelic face he’d learnt from his mother and who’d said that on anybody but his parents it was bound to get him out of minor trouble. Indeed, it did, even on Uncle John and occasionally Aunty Mary and especially Mrs Hudson, whose face visibly softened when his eyes went wide.

“That’s quite alright young man.” Mrs Hudson smiled at him. “Would you like some tea?” She asked.

Nero, careful to be polite this time, shook his head with a smile as angelic as before. “No thank you Mrs Hudson.”

“Ok dear.” Mrs Hudson said, turning to leave the room. “But only 30 more minutes and then you need to do your homework. Your mother’s assistant has just dropped it off, apparently you left it at your mother’s.”

Nero groaned. He’d purposely left his homework at his mother’s Belgravia townhouse, so as to not do it at all. He didn’t understand why his teachers still forced him to do the homework when he’d already shown more than enough competence and expertise in mathematics and English. He could already do much more complex calculations and his year four class weren’t even mastered in simple algebra as of yet. It seemed a waste of time to have to do such mundane and primitive work. Nero still didn’t understand why he needed to go school either, especially as he didn’t seem to learn nothing new. Even his father agreed with him on this, school was a waste of time and his own talent, but his mother had superseded them both and even Nero wasn’t brave enough to protest too much against his mother’s wishes. Arguably though, school wasn’t too bad, he had a much better teacher this year, now that his mother had had a private meeting with Mr Calliani. It wasn’t that school was awful per se, his peers were fine and he was considered to be quite popular if only a bit weird. It was more the competence of the teachers that was the issue, but this year Mr Calliani actually let him help the other children and even do his own presentations to the class, even if they still didn’t get to do proper science yet. Sighing, at the mere thought of returning to school on Monday Nero was just about to return back to his robot and fusing two bits of the electric circuit together, when he had sudden thought.

“Mrs Hudson!” Nero called, as the landlady was halfway through the door.

“Yes dear?” Mrs Hudson turned back.

“Is father home?”

Mrs Hudson smiled at his question. Nero worshipped his father as a Christian would God, he was in total awe of his ability, irrelevant of his competence as a parent. She mentally noted to chastise Sherlock for not spending more time with his son, Nero evidently missed him greatly.

“Yes.” Mrs Hudson replied. “I believe he is.“

She watched as Nero’s eye lit up at her response and in an instant he dropped the welding tools onto the work bench. Before she could move out of the way, Nero took off the goggles he’d been halfway to putting on and grabbed the half built robot skeleton he’d been building, before speeding past the landlady and nanny, and up the stairs, eagerly in search of his father.


End file.
